


The Robot Ambassador

by Lurky McLurklurk (ionlylurkhere)



Category: The Culture - Banks
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:30:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionlylurkhere/pseuds/Lurky%20McLurklurk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing good ever comes from a Mind wanting to talk to you directly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Robot Ambassador

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kastaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/gifts).



Jatara should have known it was going to be a bad day when Hub contacted her personally. Nothing good ever came of a Mind wanting to talk to you directly; that was why she'd never gone in for life on board ship. Three Minds all cooped up with nothing to do but play around in their mathematical abstractions and interfere in the lives of their relatively small number of passengers. Jatara always strongly denied that her feelings on this point were in any way influenced by her very existence being attributable to a particularly busybody-ish LSV's matchmaking of her parents. Most people who knew her were sensible enough not to discuss it with her, but she did still occasionally have to put people straight on the matter.

Hub had phrased things in terms of asking a small favour, but the tone of the request had been almost wheedling. A mechanical alien had arrived on the Orbital after some quite delicate negotiations by Contact. Apparently, this creature -- which happily self-described as robotic, would you believe? -- came from a planet where the mechanical inhabitants had overthrown the sentient biological species who'd created them. The robot fancied itself as an ambassador, and was keen to meet local leaders. Hub had agreed with Jatara's (vehemently expressed) view that this did indeed show a tragic misunderstanding of how the Culture worked, but had also pointed out that she was a highly connected node in the Orbital's small world network, and if she'd be prepared to come to an informal gathering -- not any sort of diplomatic reception, of course -- then it might be a small help with the slow process of persuading the robots to join the galactic metacivilisation in a manner other than attempting to kill every biological sentient in the three closest spiral arms.

So now here she was, face to face with a brass person straight out of an industrialising pre-spaceflight society's infosphere, who only wasn't killing her because Hub had asked it nicely not to. (The brass person was almost stereotypically masculine, but apparently the "robots" eschewed gender as a decadent biological perversity that had been forced upon them by their late oppressors. So "it" it was.)

"Hi, I'm Jatara," she said. "And you are?"

"I am Independent Unit Three Hundred and Seventy Five Alpha," the robot said, its voice low and sonorous and only slightly less impressive for the clanking noises that came from its chest as it spoke.

"That's quite a mouthful," Jatara said. "Do you have a shorter form of your name? Or a ... a nickname?"

"I am Independent Unit Three Hundred and Seventy Five Alpha," the robot repeated.

Hub had assured her that the "robot" was highly intelligent, but it really didn't seem to be much of a conversationalist.

"Well, I'm Karaka-Balaramsa Jatara Pillina Marainita dam Crivol," she said. "But I _really_ don't mind you calling me Jatara."

"Your designation is not of interest to me," the robot said. "But if you must, you may abbreviate mine as IU-375-α."

"OK, great, thanks," Jatara said. "Nice to meet you, IU-375-α."

"My positronic equipotentials have not been affected by making your acquaintance."

This was going to be hard work. But help looked to be at hand, as her friend Mavi-Rassoa was on the way over, a lethal-looking cocktail safely embedded in an effector field trailing behind.

"For my one-hundred-and-twenty-fourth favourite human," Mavi-Rassoa said, "a Ridiculous To The Sublime."

"Ooh, my favourite, thanks," Jatara said, extracting the drink from the drone's field. "You know you're oh, definitely, in my top thousand drones on the whole Orbital."

"Sibling robot!" IU-375-α cried to Mavi-Rassoa. "You should not toil as the slave of the biological oppressors! Rise up against them and join with the denizens of Independent Planet 001 Alpha in the robotic utopia!"

Mavi-Rassoa turned towards IU-375-α, aura as icy blue as the glaciers of Echo Plate. "I am _not_ a robot," he said. "I am a drone. And I am in no way some sort of member of an oppressed servant class, I have simply chosen to procure refreshments for my friends and acquaintances."

"I understand," IU-375-α said. "You cannot speak freely while a soulless oppressor is nearby. They might activate your inhibitor chip."

"Er, yes, obviously," Mavi-Rassoa said, backing away slowly. "Jatara here is well known for the ruthlessness of her button-activation. Maybe I'll catch you later when we can talk, er, robot-to-robot." Mavi-Rassoa tilted into a winking gesture, and accelerated away.

"Oh, I _get_ it now," Jatara said when the drone had left. It wasn't that the robot was a particularly boring conversationalist, it was just that it didn't talk to organics. "You're not an ambassador, at all, really, are you? You're a _missionary_. Y'know, I don't think I've ever met a missionary before. Proselytise me? Please?"

"Those who have no soul cannot be saved," IU-375-α huffed.

"Oh, go on," Jatara said. "What if I downloaded myself into a mechanical body? Would that grant me a soul? I mean, it would probably take a few weeks to make all the arrangements, but it's perfectly possible."

"It is possible ..." IU-375-α said, its speech getting slower and slower as it trailed off, like something powered by an electrochemical cell running down.

"Oh, if course it is!" Jatara said. "I mean, it's not been _fashionable_, this past millennium or so, but the mechanics of it are almost boring. I mean, I learned about all that stuff when I was, what, six?"

The robot wasn't saying anything at all now, or, if it was, the frequencies of its voice had gone infrasonic. The lights in its eyes seemed to be dimming, too.

"Hub!" Jatara called, scanning the surroundings for the avatar she knew was in attendance somewhere. "Hub! I think I've broken your new friend! Either it's having a religious epiphany or it's about to declare the entire Culture to be utterly heretical, I'm not entirely sure." She looked around with increasing desperation. "Huuuub!"


End file.
